PhD candidate, Dr Douglas Blank, from the Ritchie Centre (Hudson Institute and Monash University), has won the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Three Minute Thesis Competition for his presentation on physiologic-based cord clamping.
“If you can show that it is better to help a baby breathe while it is still attached to the placenta, I may be able to change international guidelines and reduce the number of babies that are dying needlessly worldwide.”
– Douglas Blank, PhD student, the Ritchie Centre.
Douglas is undertaking his PhD in the Fetal and Neonatal Health Research Group under Professor Stuart Hooper. The title of his PhD is Umbilical cord management during neonatal resuscitation. You can view his presentation below.
Around 10 per cent of all babies born worldwide require assistance to breathe in the first few minutes of life. 800,000 babies die annually from birth asphyxia.
Douglas’ study will help design and conduct two clinical trials to determine if cord clamping improves hemodynamic stability in newborn babies at birth.
Douglas won second place in the Hudson Institute/ School of Clinical Sciences final to go onto compete at faculty level.
This is the second year a student from the School of Clinical Sciences has won the faculty competition final. Last year, PhD student Zoe Marks won first place for her presentation on Novel type I interferon (IFN) signalling in breast and ovarian cancer.
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